He reached for the phone receiver with a foreboding sense of trouble, his deepest instincts on edge about the nature of the call that seemed urgent enough to pull him out of the interview.
"Yeah, this is Keller?"
"Inspector Keller…this is…this is Erin McMillan."
His heart sped up a few paces when he recognized the voice on the other end and Steve leaned forward on his elbows, one hand covering his other ear to drown out the noises of the busy bullpen.
"Miss McMillan, how can I help you?"
"Inspector, I…well…I heard about what my brother told you. That I am…I am the killer. I guess…I don't know what to say?"
He could hear her weep on the other end, a mixture of heartache and anger in her voice, as she spoke of her sibling.
Deciding to thread the subject carefully, Steve nodded out of habit, his mind quickly finding ways to derail the conversation into a more controlled direction, and yet hoping to prod some more information out of the teacher.
"Miss McMillan, at this point we have countless suspects for these murders and we're working diligently to follow up on each lead.", he life, grateful when he heard the lady relax somewhat on the other end, "I can assure if that if there is a question about your involvement, we will be bringing you in for questioning."
"But what about the press? They're calling me. Eric must have talked to them. I don't know what to do. The school is asking questions."
Pursing his lips, Steve stole a glance back at the interview room, where Mike was still busy continuing his monologue with Horatio.
"At this point I would ask you to disregard these phone calls and questions. We do live in a country where everybody is innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, a thorough investigation takes time, and we simply cannot provide results in a speedy fashion as the press would like to see it, not if we take our jobs seriously, for that matter."
At the other end, Erin seemed to calm down some more, her whimpering stopping as she raised her voice again.
"Thank you so much, Inspector Keller. I am so sorry about this…breakdown. It's just…Eric and I never did have a good relationship but things only deteriorated the more determined he became to run for office. I hate what his greed has done to him. After everything we've been through, the last thing I expected was for him to…to say such horrible things about me."
"I am truly sorry things turned out the way they did.", Steve said apologetically, feeling a certain degree of empathy with the woman on the other end of the line, "We'll be sure to keep you informed on the progress of our investigation into your father's death."
"There is another reason I called you, Inspector Keller.", Erin then said, her voice growing more controlled, albeit still somber, "There were a couple of things I found at my apartment. They belong to my fiancé David. I…I think you should take a look at them."
